Green Valley Raceway was located at North Richland Hills, Texas (near Fort Worth) and operated from the 60's through the late 80's.

Basically it was a 1/4 mile drag strip with a twisty bit connecting it to make for a road course. A lot of drags through the years and the road course hosted Trans-Am and, after being closed for a while in the 70's, hosted the "new" Can-Am series in the mid-80's. The road course also hosted some SCCA Regionals and IIRC, a few SCCA Nationals.

Last aerial view I saw of it, it was completely surrounded by housing.

After it had problems with hosting events at the various venues in the area, the Dallas-Fort Worth Region (which I think was their correct nomenclature) of the SCCA worked out some sort of deal with the guy who owned the dragstrip around the early 1960s (1961 it seems) and snatched a Trans-Am date for 1966 when others hemmed and hawed.....

Today, it is part of a residential communuity, although the immediate area around the track itself still seems clear in the latest (1995) photos, the dragstrip closed in 1989 or 1990 and development has since overtaken it if my information is correct. I meant to visit the site on one of my visits to Dallas, but we ended up having to leave earlier than we had planned.

It is amazing coincidence that this thread has been opened today. A few days ago Rick Kelly and I were debating about the location of Green Valley Raceway and Rick - who raced there in 1961 - is sure that the track is not located in North Richland Hills, but in (ta-da!) a small town called Green Valley, further north from Dallas.

I was researching on Ted Arnold (killed in a dragster crash in 01 September 1963) when I came across the place of the accident, Green Valley Raceway. Consulting Allan Brown's excellent book "The History of America's Speedway - Past & Present" (*) I indeed found a caption placing Green Valley Raceway at North Richland Hills (page 505 of the book). So I had listed it as such at Motorsport Memorial.

Besides that, Brown states in his book that drag racing took place at Green Valley circa 1981-1989... This did not sound right, as Arnold was killed at the venue twenty years before that. Also, the dates on Brown's book led me to believe that Green Valley was a originally a road course that had been later adapted to drag racing, but this page at Darren Galpin's The GEL Motorsport Information Pages seems to indicate the opposite!

Puzzled, I decided to contact Rick Kelly, the original source on Ted Arnold. Surprisingly Rick had raced at that track, sent me the following (reproduced verbatim) :

"My last race was in Norman, OK, on 1 October 1961. I drove in a race several months before that at Green Valley. I remember only three things about it

1) I did not win any pots;2) Some sob had the nerve to nerf me at the first turn - sports cars were not permitted to touch each other in that ancient period of club racing. I was really really pissed. It was a very minute dent in the rear of my bumperless Morgan, but my anger enlarged the damage into a confrontation after the race with the offending driver - who immediately apologized - how do you stay angry when someone apologizes? I later learned that he had already been reprimanded by one of the official observers, very gently - and that the observer saw me coming and told the offender to apologize fast and not to even think of arguing with me. The observer knew me fairly well and had never seen my face so blazingly red with anger. Discretion is the better part of valour --- .3) Green Valley was a drag strip that had been adapted for sports car racing! yada yada yada Go to http://www.mapquest.com Search for Green Valley, Texas. A little red star will show up on the map, 5 miles NNE of Denton, TX (home of several Miss Americas from North Texas State College). By 1969 a huge new drag strip had been built south of Lewisville, TX, on the east side of I-35E. I knew that place very well. There was a three day pop-music festival, not unlike the one at Woodstock, that was set up on the grounds of the newer drag strip. The biggest difference was that we had hot sun instead of wet rain. But it was a great party! Santana, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Spirit, Country Joe and the Fish, B. B. King, James Cotton Blues Band, Chicago Transit Authority, Sam and Dave, Sly and the Family Stone, Ten Years After, and .....Sweetwater. Sweetwater was a great tragedy. Driving back to California for the Monterrey Festival, they had a bad wreck, and their lead singer, a girl with a gorgeous contralto voice, as good as Grace Slick, but not quite as powerful, had her throat and voice box crushed. She survived, but was never the same as a vocalist. See, you can get messed up on the highways even more easily than on a race track! The track where the Texas International Pop Festival was held in 1969 was called the Dallas International Motor Speedway.Not the same track as the one at Green Valley. Green Valley might have been abandoned after DIMS opened. But mapquest says that Green Valley is alive and well and north north east of Denton, Texas. Unlike Brainerd, MN, and its race track (6 miles north of Brainerd), Green Valley is now just a dot on the map, and a very dim memory of a wasted weekend in my head."

Don and Jim seem to confim Rick's testimony: Green Valley Raceway evolved from a dragstrip into a road course (and not the opposite) and dragracing was there already in the early 1960s.

But... was the track in Green Valley or North Richland Hills? Based on Rick's words, I have to believe it was in a small place called Green Valley, a town circa five miles north-northeast of Denton, and not it North Richland Hills, which is some 12 miles north-northeast of Fort Worth.

Any comments?

I sent an e-mail on this concern to Allan on 04 August, but he has not replayed yet.

I am really interested on hearing from you guys on this...

Cheers,

Muzza

(*) : My copy of Allan's book is of its second edition, dated 1994. Allan released a new edition a few months ago, but I have not ordered my copy yet - I will get it in October.

If someone is interested, the book can be ordered at:P.O. Box 448Comstock Park, MI 49321

I get the impression there may have been two different Green Valley Raceways near Dallas/Ft Worth, over time. In the late fifties the only sportscar racing near Ft Worth was at Eagle Mountain National Guard Base, 10 miles North of the City.

Green Valley Raceway is (or was) most assuredly in North Richland Hills Texas at the intersection of N. Tarrant Road and Smithfield Parkway. There is residential development on all sides as of December of 03 when I drove past the site of the track. The south end of the drag strip was being graded for development at that time and Bursey road will be extended across it. The track is clearly visible in Terra Server in a 1995 arial photo. This is a track that appears to be more notable in history than in fact. When I lived in Texas in the late 80's no one there seemed to have much favorable to say about the track.

a friend of mine has just scanned some 35mm slides I have in my collection taken at Green Valley Raceway back in June 1966. I thought you might like to see this photo of a Lotus (I think) in the paddock. Can anyone tell me what it is?? FJunior??

Easy part to pick it as a Lotus 20 is the use of the rear drive shafts also acting as the top/camber link , this car has been updated a little with wider 13'' wheels all around , instead of the 1961 spec. 13'' dia. fronts and 15'' dia. rears of 5'' inch width all round , these look like about 6'' or 7'' fronts and 8'' on the rear.

Looks like there's a C on the side, probably denoting it was running in Formula C (up to 1100cc IIRC).

Gary - I'd be very interested to see any other single seaters at that event. FA, FB and FC were very new at that point and the cars were still largely US produced. There were probably some real rarities at Green Valley that weekend.

Assuming it's an SCCA meeting (which is where an FC Lotus would have run), the car is more likely to be an ex-F1 Lotus running under Formula A. Looks like an 18 rear end, but a later nose - an 18/21? Allen?

The red car to the right in the first pic certainly doesn't look like any Devin I've ever seen.

It looks like an older car, something late 50s/early 60s, perhaps a Crosley Special of some sort? 1966 would have been pretty late to have been running a Crosley special (competitively, anyways)and I think the H-Modified class was just about finished at that time. Who knows?

On the second picture, I can't offer much - it looks like it could be a 18/21 to me but I'm no expert. What I can add is that there were at least four Lotus 18s in SCCA racing by 1966 plus two 21s and even a Lotus 24, maybe two.

Hello Ray! I can confirm that the red car is no Devin. I also agree with David, a Crosley base was wha came to mind for me as well. I wish I could see the tail and nose sections on the car. I have several books of te era showing a variety of specials but these limited photos ring no bells. Certainly it is fibreglass which leads me to think of limited but mass production bodies.

I totally agree on the Formula C class though but this is about 7 years before I attended my first SCCA club races. Where was Green Valley located? Those dark blue license plates remind me of Kentucky in those days but I am sure that many states had plain navy blue.

Originally posted by David McKinney Assuming it's an SCCA meeting (which is where an FC Lotus would have run), the car is more likely to be an ex-F1 Lotus running under Formula A. Looks like an 18 rear end, but a later nose - an 18/21? Allen?

If you're talking about the blue and white car, David, I can't see why you don't immediately recognise it as a Lotus 20. At least a Lotus 20 body, perhaps a modified Lotus 18 chassis, but unlikely.

*Edit* Sorry, I now see what you're saying... that the 'Indi' Lotus is at the same meeting as the little car. It does look a little stubby, but it could be an Indy car. The exhausts are all Indy car.

As a kid, I recall a Saab powered Jabro Mk III racing at Indianapolis Raceway Park 30+ years ago. I recall thinking the body and cockpit reminded me of a tiny Birdcage Maserati (how many 10 year olds are reminded of a Birdcage Maser?). I did not know of the earlier Jabro models but it looks to me like Gary has nailed it and the Crosley connection is probably right as well.

My interest is Lotus 23s, so I am intrigued by the blue G Mod 23 #61, as this does not appear in any of the programme listings. #39 Dave Morgan does not appear in the photos but was entered in F Mod so unlikely to be this car. Pete Sherman was entered in a 23 in G Mod so could be this, although he is listed as #7 in the programme.

Also, the #97 white F Mod 23 is mis-identified, I believe, as Dave Morgan, when the programme says it is Bob Markley, who from time to time drove Homer Rader's 23.

Finally, the #18 Lotus 23 is Richard Macon in an Alfa-powered car. I believe that he owned and raced this car in the 1964 season and it appears that the photos were taken on different occasion as it is very wet, with signs of large puddles, quite unlike the other photos taken of the other cars, so perhaps this one could have been misfiled as 63 when in fact it is 64?

The photos taken in heavy rains were probably of the third Green Valley event of 1963, the one held on July 15-16.

Some IDs based on race numbers:

- #5 and #93 show George Koehne's bobtail Cooper with Buick V8

- #35 shows the Lotus 18 raced by Bill Janowski after he sold the Monsterati

- #16 shows Tim White, the new owner of the Monsterati

- #17 is Tom Johnson and his Maserati 300S/Chevy, an old Ebb Rose car

- #97 and #18 Lotus 23s are Bob Markley and Gordon Richardson.

all research: Willem Oosthoek

Hi Jerry/Willem

Are you sure about the ID of Gordon Richardson, as this was definitely the car owned by Dick Macon and it is parked next to his truck. If so, was Richardson the owner before Macon? Photo filename of #97 says Dave Morgan but I agree the programme says Markley. Interesting re July meeting in rain, I thought it looked very different to the rest.

It was a single cam V-6. If I recall this was the early Dino motor based on a Columbo (Sp?) design and it was a different lineage than the later twin cam Dino's. The trivial detail of the time was that the cylinder banks of the two designs were staggered oppositely; i.e., which bank was forward of the other to offset the connecting rods on the crank journal. That's based on 46 year old memories and may have been wrong at the time!

Pictures taken the 1965 Mid Ohio USRRC. Unfortunately the car wasn't as quick as George follmer's lotus-Porsche. Ed Hugus operated out of Pittsburgh, PA, note the Continental Cars tow vehicle.

The above photo shows 5R002, at the debut event for the R-Model Shelby.

More from Jerry Melton on the race between Ken Miles in the Shelby and Charlie Barnes in the Merlyn:

"I couldn't get very close again that year. My corner work (flag station) didn't start until the next season. For the duel between CharlieBarnes' Merlyn and Miles I was at the 180 degree turn at the top of the hill. Miles would hug the inside, drag racing out and down the straightaway (which was a dragstrip) while Barnes made a wide, smooth outside parabola. It was a very tight contest."